Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Decreasing Your Risk of Breast Cancer, Not Just for Those with Celiac Disease

Do You Get Regular Mammograms? Read This!

Those with celiac disease, who are untreated or who haven’t fully healed
their intestinal lining, are at increased risk for developing cancer. If you
are a woman, you don’t want to compound that risk by annually subjecting your
breasts to radiation.

Is this just my opinion? No. There is research to support a concern I’ve
had about mammograms for many, many years. As a doctor, I typically caution my patients against mammograms, and
instead advise them to look into ultrasound and thermography.

The facts are that radiation causes cancer. Repeated radiation increases
your risk of cancer and delicate breast tissue is known to be particularly
susceptible. Does it then make sense to perform such radiation annually and NOT
think it’s going to increase your risk of developing breast cancer?

Mammograms Are Not the Great Diagnostic Tool We've Been Lead to Believe

But isn’t it a ‘fact’ that mammograms protect us from cancer? Aren’t they
the ‘answer’ to early detection?It
turns out they are not.

The Journal of the National
Cancer Institute published a study out of Sweden that found
mammograms to have little or no effect in reducing the number of women who died
of breast cancer. Here’s a direct quote: “mortality
statistics in Sweden are consistent with studies that have reported limited or
no impact of screening on mortality from breast cancer among women aged
40-69."

The lead
researcher Dr. Autier from the International Prevention Research Institute in
Lyon, France, had this to say: “Information to women on mammography
screening should better reflect uncertainty on the effectiveness of that test,
and underline the risk of overdiagnosis and overtreatment.”

Mammograms Are NOT Saving Lives

A different study
from 2010 also found that reduction
in mortality was all but nonexistent from mammograms. Their findings were
that only 2.4 deaths per 100,000 women could be saved as a result of screening.
Certainly we are not trying to make light of saving 2.4 lives, but
unfortunately the downside far outweighs that meager benefit.

Some downsides were elucidated by the Nordic Cochrane Center in
Copenhagen. After reviewing available research they distributed a leaflet
explaining the benefits and potential downsides of mammograms - the summation being
that it was not reasonable for women to receive breast cancer screenings though
mammography.

Here’s the quote: “If 2,000 women are screened regularly for 10 years,
one [woman] will benefit from screening.” They further went on to say:
“Therefore screening results in treatment of many women for a cancer disease
they do not have, and that they will not get.”

Unnecessary Treatment is Expensive and Dangerous

Let’s look at that closer. They found that screening caused many women to
be treated for a cancer they did not have. Why? Because over the course of
those 10 years during which time 2,000 women are screened regularly, they
estimated that 200 women will receive false positives. Of those 200, 10 will
be treated unnecessarily with drastic techniques including having part of their
breast or their entire breast removed, while receiving radiotherapy
[radiation], and sometimes chemotherapy. Treatment of these healthy women
increased their risk of dying. E.g. from heart disease and cancer.”

Do you like the ratio of 10: 1? Ten women harmed with dangerous,
cancer-causing treatment for every 1 who is saved? I know that I don’t.

The More Mammograms You Have, the More Likely You'll Get Cancer

Another study from The Lancet
Oncology (2011) evaluated a
screening program of 650,000 women in Sweden. They found that those who
received the most screenings had a higher incidence of invasive breast cancer
than those who received much fewer screenings. In fact, they felt that over
the natural course of time, many of the screening detected invasive breast
cancers spontaneously regressed if left alone!

It is also well
known that women with fibrocystic breasts, or dense breasts, are not good
candidates for mammograms. I experienced this personally with my mother who
received many repeated mammograms for a ‘suspicious’ area, only to end up with
an ultrasound (a noninvasive procedure that utilizes no radiation) that
proclaimed her to be fine.

Find Out if You Have Fibrocystic Breasts

Some states such
as New York, Connecticut, Texas and Virginia have passed laws requiring that
women with dense breasts be informed about alternative screening tools. Can we
urge our Congressmen to have California (and the rest of the country) be next?
What about federal legislation?

Do you have dense
breasts? If so you are not alone. Half of all women are estimated to have them
and that number increases to 75% when women are in their 40s. This means that
half to three quarters of all the women receiving mammograms are really not candidates for the
procedure. The radiation they receive increases their risk of developing cancer
while the test is ineffective at detecting breast cancer.

Does it make
sense to you to continue this procedure?

Here are Some
Cancer Prevention Steps You Can Take Right Now

1. Limit
sugar in your diet. We continue to discover the importance of diet as it relates
to cancer prevention. Sugar and particularly high fructose corn sweeteners are
increasing cancer risk.

2 2. Move.
Exercise that burns fat and maintains a healthy body weight is another factor
in reducing cancer risk. If you have a ‘spare tire’ around your mid-section you
are going to need to get rid of it.

3

3. Eat
plants. Consuming 7 to 9 servings of organic fruits and veggies each day along
with supplementing powerful cancer-fighting antioxidants, including vitamins D
and C, is another step you can take.

4. Stay
away from the man-made ‘Franken foods’. Avoid artificial sweeteners,
preservatives and limit exposure to hormones, pesticides and environmental
toxins as much as possible. This will help you to avoid dangerous inflammation
that is the initiator of degenerative disease in general and cancer in
specific.

5. Get
an oil change. Remember to ingest good oils such as fish oil that are loaded
with omega-3 fatty acids, along with flax seeds, walnuts, wild rice and
enriched eggs. Omaga -3s are anti-inflammatory and therefore protective against
cancer as well as other degenerative diseases.

6.Check
your levels. You’ll need to find a doctor who works with evaluating the pros
and cons of your immune system. On the plus side you want a strong level of
vitamin D (somewhere between 50 and 70 ng/ml is a good level to shoot for) and
robust probiotic levels that will keep your immune defending you against
cancer. On the con side, you want to ensure that you don’t have an overabundance
of toxins that are overwhelming your system or the presence of any infectious
organisms. Both will severely compromise your immune system making it less able
to defend itself against cancer. Such testing can be done here at HealthNOW Medical Center.

I hope you have
found this informative. I urge you to share this post with every woman you
know. The concept of mandatory mammograms needs to change, in my opinion. I’ve
said for a long time that in the future we will look at the idea of radiating
women’s breasts as barbaric and ill advised. I hope that day comes quickly so
that fewer cancers are created with this dangerous procedure.

I’d love to hear
from you and am happy to answer your questions.

At HealthNOW
we are committed to discovering the underlying root cause of your health
problems. Our destination clinic treats patients from across the country and
internationally, so you do not need to live locally to receive help. For a free health analysis call 408-733-0400. We are here to help you and those you care
about!

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Who Are We?

The Gluten Doctors are a group of doctors consisting of MDs, Naturopaths and Certified Clinical Nutritionists.

Two of the doctors, Drs. Rick and Vikki Petersen, authored the bestseller, "The Gluten Effect", a book which exposes the dangers of gluten and provides a path to good health for those with gluten sensitivity.

The Gluten Doctors specialize in the area of digestive problems, especially gluten sensitivity and celiac disease. Their clinic, HealthNOW Medical Center, is located in the heart of Silicon Valley in Sunnyvale, California.